2720 The Church invites the
faithful to regular prayer: daily prayers, the Liturgy of the Hours, Sunday
Eucharist, the feasts of the liturgical year.

2721 The Christian tradition
comprises three major expressions of the life of prayer: vocal prayer,
meditation, and contemplative prayer. They have in common the recollection of
the heart.

2722 Vocal prayer, founded on
the union of body and soul in human nature, associates the body with the interior
prayer of the heart, following Christ's example of praying to his Father and
teaching the Our Father to his disciples.

2723 Meditation is a
prayerful quest engaging thought, imagination, emotion, and desire. Its goal is
to make our own in faith the subject considered, by confronting it with the
reality of our own life.

2724 Contemplative prayer is
the simple expression of the mystery of prayer. It is a gaze of faith fixed on
Jesus, an attentiveness to the Word of God, a silent love. It achieves real
union with the prayer of Christ to the extent that it makes us share in his
mystery.